Google recently released version 2.6 of the Android app for Google+. The upgraded application features an improved user interface, in addition to a host of new features. According to an unnamed source, one of those new features looks to be the inclusion of “events”. While nothing is official, adding events to the platform could work wonders for the value of Google+ as a social networking tool. This article will explain how.

Meeting Diverse Objectives

When most people think of events, they imagine conferences, conventions, or similar functions. However, they are far more versatile than given credit for. In fact, an event could be the fundraiser for your non-profit organization, the contest running on your blog, or the big sale coming up on your website. Social networking creates added visibility for events, and when leveraging them on a popular site like Google+, the chances of driving attendance or sales skyrocket for whatever you have planned.

Driving Conversation

The internet has taken event marketing to a whole new level, providing convenient access to a plethora of tools that can be used to get the word out and get results. Email is a perfect example of such a tool. But while email is great at spreading the word, social networks like Google+ can see to it that the word travels even further. For instance, once someone in your circles notices that you are sponsoring a local food drive or just leasing a both at a local tradeshow, the conversations they spark could lead to higher attendance numbers, and greater success overall.

Extending Audience Reach

Events are currently an essential element of the Facebook experience. Users can easily create them and invite whomever they wish from their friends list. But what many users like about the feature on Facebook is the ability it provides to share with others. If the event is listed as public, all it takes is the click of a button for a user to not only pass along word of the gathering at hand, but actually invite friends to join as well. This has worked out swell marketers because it essentially allows enthusiastic guests to do the promoting on their behalf. Considering that Google+ is in direct competition with Facebook, it would not be surprising to see an event feature that delivers this functionality and more.

Closing the Gap

There has been a lot of talk about how Google+ is struggling to keep pace with Facebook and the other giants in the social networking realm. Some believe this is because the site lacks the uniqueness that will allow it to stand out and distance itself from the crowd. Adding events obviously would not be anything groundbreaking, but it could give event promoters another reason to pay attention to promising social networking platform. Or at least Google hopes so.

Much change has accompanied the Facebook timeline, including a new feature called “suggested guests”, which was recently introduced for its Events component. As the name implies, the feature serves up a list of people a user might want to consider inviting to their event. The driving algorithm delivers these recommendations based on relevance to the event at hand and the people who are attending. For example, if you are an author trying to drum up attendance for your next book signing, the feature might suggest friends who have recently reviewed a book in the “I’m Reading” app, or a liked another author’s page.

Advantages to Social Marketers

The reason social marketers should take advantage of suggested guests is because of its surprising accuracy. According to early reviews, the feature does a great job of recommending potential guests you might have overlooked for one reason or another. If you are promoting an event, you may just see a list of suggested guests accompanied by an “invite” button to the right of the page. The suggestions are delivered in threes, and you can keep refreshing the three options until you have exhausted all the people on your friends list who are not attending. It really is a simple, yet effective way to maximize your event marketing efforts on Facebook.

From the looks of it, the new suggested guests feature is a nice addition that active social marketers can benefit from. If Facebook receives positive feedback, it could eventually become a tool that helps promoters increase awareness and as a result, increase the attendance for their events. Despite being extremely useful already, there is still room for improvement with suggested guests. As it stand now, the feature does not offer up names with any sort of context. If it was to say, remind you that you should invite John because he expressed interest in your new book on Facebook, or Jane because she mentioned one of your previous books in a recent update, it could be made even better.

Facebook’s suggested guests feature is an extension of numerous enhancements that have recently been made to its events component. Back in November of 2011, the social giant introduced a new and improved user interface to simplify the event creation and management process. In December, it rolled out “suggested events”. This particular feature delivers recommendations for events a user might want to attend based on their activity on the company’s Open Graph platform, in addition to pages they have liked, and events people on their friends list are attending.

Summary

Some have called the new suggested guests feature creepy due to the personalization element, but if you are a social marketer who frequently promotes events on Facebook, we think you will find it very useful. The function is currently being tested with select users, but if all goes well, it could be released to the entire community in the very near future. This is one we could see going live much sooner than later.

It’s the most popular blogging software out there, the people behind it are awesome, and it just keeps getting better and better!

With the WordPress 3.3 update, bloggers have a few new tools at the ready, which will make their job much easier in terms of focusing on creating content and streamlining the process.

A new interface

WordPress now features a responsive HTML5 design, so the dashboard will automagically resize itself for the optimal user experience. As it shrinks, sidebar elements collapse. You’ll notice the overall design has been polished up a bit as well.

New toolbar

Along with the new interface, we have a new toolbar! It seems WordPress is modeling the toolbar after the simply Google+ bar that now runs across their web properties. In addition to clean design, the toolbar continues to give blogger the capability of jumping to the place they want to be no matter where they are on the page.

Drag and drop media uploading

Finally!

Again, I think WordPress has taken note of what has created an extremely smooth user experience at Google+. The drag and drop media upload reduces the amount of buttons in your kitchen sink, gives you the power to quickly upload a file, and let’s you avoid that oh-so-annoying break in concentration that happens when you dig through your files for that one image.

From what I’ve read, you can also upload RAR and 7z archive formats.

And more

The update also includes a few other features you may or may not notice depending on your use, but one two of the more notable include a Tumblr Importer and Co-Editing.

Now you can import your Tumblr blog content direct and edit your content even when others are working on the same content.